


December 7, 2019

by VR_Trakowski



Series: 31 Days of Ficmas 2019 [7]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficmas, Unabashedly Sentimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21720544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VR_Trakowski/pseuds/VR_Trakowski
Summary: Emily decorates for Christmas, with a little help.
Relationships: Emily Prentiss/David Rossi
Series: 31 Days of Ficmas 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561948
Kudos: 8





	December 7, 2019

**Author's Note:**

> Happy December! I'm attempting the 31 Days of Ficmas prompts, which are apparently open to any fandom.
> 
> I do reserve the right to quit at any time. :P
> 
> This is something of a sequel to [Inaugural](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21720511), which is now of course very out of canon. The prompt is "garland".

“Thanks for coming over.” Emily stood back, holding the door open. “I - what’s all that?”

Rossi stepped inside, grinning at her over the boxes in his arms. “Decorations.”

Emily watched him go up the hall and shut the door rather absently. “Dave, I _have_ decorations.”

“Not enough!” he called back, rounding the corner into the living room, and she blinked and followed.

Emily had set up her small, somewhat battered artificial tree, which she’d carted from pillar to post for years, and she’d turned on the gas fireplace, but her two small boxes of ornaments were waiting on the coffee table. When she’d asked Rossi over to help her decorate, she’d imagined a cozy evening, a glass or two of wine, maybe some holiday music...not _enthusiasm_.

Rossi was opening the boxes he’d brought, bringing out a neatly wrapped bundle of colored lights and a huge wad of what looked almost like dark green fur. “If you’re going to decorate, you should do it _right_ ,” he said. “Christmas is no time for restraint.”

Emily thought about the ruthlessly coordinated, beautifully minimal decorations of her childhood, the ambassador’s insistence that even the smallest ornament be in perfect taste. She looked at her two boxes of color-coordinated glass baubles, not a reindeer or snowflake among them.

And she grinned. “Coffee, or hot chocolate?”

It ended up being Irish coffee for the most part. Rossi dressed the tree in the lights and had Emily set up candles on the mantel; the green fur turned out to be yards and yards of pine garlands, which went along the mantel and even the ceiling. Emily provided the ladder, but Rossi had remembered to bring the hooks, assuring her that she could remove them after Christmas with no ill effects to the plaster.

There were ceramic reindeer; tiny, glittering trees; a painted creche that Emily strongly suspected was an antique; and a mild scolding about not getting a proper tree.

“I like this one,” Emily protested, amused. “It’s got memories attached.”

“Objection withdrawn then,” Rossi said immediately. “Christmas is all about the memories.”

“You just said it was all about the decorations five minutes ago.” Emily bopped him lightly with the cardboard tube the lights had been wrapped around.

“And I was right.” Rossi gave her a smug look. “Christmas should never be about limitations.”

He always made her laugh. When the living room was a cozy cavern of twinkling lights and colors, Emily let Rossi drag her out into the twilight to hang the rest of the garlands from the edges of her little porch’s roof. Then there were lights for the bushes to either side as well. Emily was almost relieved that she’d already put up a wreath on the door, and drew the line when Rossi produced a gigantic red bow for it.

“It’s fine the way it is, Dave. There _are_ limits.” Snickering a little, and feeling the effects of the coffee, she fastened it to the zipper on his jacket, like an oversized bow tie.

He straightened it carefully, eyes as bright as the lights. “Didn’t I just tell you that Christmas shouldn’t -”

There was one obvious way to shut him up. Emily kissed him in the shimmering darkness of a winter evening, caring not at all about her numb toes or his cold nose.

She did get her cozy night in the end, and more memories for her tree. And a new appreciation of the joys of celebration.


End file.
